


Five Times Joy Hecate Hardbroom Left Cackle’s Academy, and One Time She Came Back

by cosmic_llin



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: 5 Things, Backstory, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 13:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18181196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: How could she keep to one small castle and its small grounds and its small rules when there was a whole, big world out there, waiting to be explored?





	Five Times Joy Hecate Hardbroom Left Cackle’s Academy, and One Time She Came Back

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to the end of S3.

1.

She knew it was against the Code and she'd be in so much trouble if the teachers found out, but the world seemed so much bigger now than it ever had before. How could she ignore that? How could she keep to one small castle and its small grounds and its small rules when there was a whole, big world out there, waiting to be explored?

 

2.

‘Hecate,’ said Ada tentatively. ‘I’ve had an idea.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well… I’ve been doing a lot of reading about confinement spells and…’

‘Ada. We’ve had this conversation. I don’t want to break it.’

They’d discussed it a few times over the two years since Ada had discovered the spell - Hecate usually tried to change the subject as quickly as possible, but it didn’t stop Ada from getting that worried look on her face whenever it came up.

‘This wouldn’t be breaking the spell,’ she said. ‘Just… bending it a bit. May I tell you?’

Hecate hated to disappoint Ada.

‘You might as well,’ she said. ‘But I make no promises.’

‘The spell keeps you magically attached to the school, tying itself to the protections and wards that define the school’s borders.’

‘... yes, that’s my understanding.’

‘As far as the magic is concerned, I am part of the school. As its headmistress, I’m linked with it. I think perhaps you could leave the school if I were with you. Now, I’m not saying you have to, but I’d feel better if I knew there was a way for you to get away if, gods forbid, anything should ever happen to the castle.’

‘Thank you, but no,’ said Hecate, turning back to her work, staring down at her marking and trying to ignore her racing heart.

* * *

It was four months later that she went to Ada’s office and said, ‘You’re right. Let’s try it.’

Ada’s eyes widened - she understood instantly what Hecate meant.

Ten minutes later they stood at the edge of the grounds, where a low stone wall separated the Cackle lands from the rest of the world. It only came to Hecate’s knees, but it might as well have been twenty feet tall.

At first she’d come here a lot, looking at the rest of the world going by. As the years passed she’d strayed less and less, throwing herself into her school work and then her training and then her teaching. Sometimes now she barely even thought about it.

Ada stepped lightly across the wall, and reached back over. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got you.’

Hecate took Ada’s hand. She felt as though her feet were fastened to the earth. She thought she might be sick.

‘You can do it,’ said Ada gently.

It felt like cheating, like trying to wriggle out of a punishment she’d earned. When she’d sworn never to leave the place where Indigo’s statue stood, she hadn’t meant “until Ada Cackle takes me”, she’d meant forever.

_If anything should ever happen to the castle_ , Ada had said.

Hecate had been thinking about it since that day. Cackle’s had been standing for centuries, but magical accidents were likeliest at schools, and sometimes things went far enough that permanent evacuation was the only solution. It had taken her a while to realise that she wasn’t totally reconciled to the idea of staying to be crushed by falling masonry, or wander the grounds like a ghost, or whatever else might happen to her in an abandoned magical school.

It was weak of her to even think it. If it ever happened it would only be what she deserved. But being with Ada made her feel as though perhaps there was a tiny, tiny bit of space for what she _wanted_ , too.

So she stepped over the wall. Just in case.

 

3.

After those first few tentative steps over the wall, Hecate had stayed close to the castle for some time, content to know that the option was there if the circumstances ever demanded it.

When the occasion arose, there was barely time to think.

‘Hecate!’ Ada cried, bursting into her room.

Ada always knocked. _Always_. Even though Hecate had told her a million times that there was no need. Something was terribly wrong.

‘What is it?’ Hecate asked.

The story was garbled, told as they hurried out into the dark and the rain. A missing student, a stolen spellbook, rumours flying.

‘Will you come with me?’ Ada asked, as they reached the broom shed. ‘I’d appreciate your help.’

Hecate hadn’t even hesitated.

 

4.

On the rare occasions she’d allowed herself to even imagine her first journey after lifting the spell, she had not pictured this. Transferring through a magical storm, further than she’d been in decades, more difficult than almost any magic she had ever performed, only to arrive shaking and disoriented into the home of a woman who had no reason whatsoever to welcome her.

But Julie Hubble had reached out to keep her from falling. She had to admit, there was something almost poetic about that.

 

5.

‘Shall we go?’ Ada asked.

Hecate nodded. ‘No sense putting it off any longer,’ she said.

They walked down the stairs, Ada carrying Hecate’s little valise, Morgana following. They stopped together at the main entrance. The door was open and the world lay beyond.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Ada asked. ‘I could come with you…’

‘No. Thank you, but no.’

Hecate leaned in, kissed Ada fiercely and squeezed her hand as she took the valise.

‘I love you, Ada Cackle,’ she said.

Then she got on her broom and kicked off the ground, before she could think better of it.

The sky ahead of her was so blue. It felt as though she could fly into it forever. She resisted the temptation to look back. This was a time for looking forward.

 

1.

Two weeks later, Hecate’s broom arced down towards the grounds of Cackle’s Academy. She hadn’t looked back when she’d left, and now she was glad of it - seeing it laid out like a picture beneath her made her eyes blur with tears. There was no way she’d have been able to leave this sight.

Two weeks had felt like a lifetime.

The pink dot hurrying into the courtyard had to be Ada. Hecate pointed the broom towards her, coming in for a landing so uncharacteristically fast and uncontrolled that, when she was low enough for her feet to touch the ground, she tumbled off the broom and straight into Ada’s waiting arms, bowling them both over. They rolled to a stop, tangled together, and Hecate thought, _I’m home_.

No kisses had ever been more urgent, no embrace sweeter. On the sunlit flagstones of the courtyard, they held each other close until at last Ada pulled back a little, her hands on Hecate’s shoulders.

‘Oh, let me look at you!’ she said. ‘I want you to tell me _everything_. I mean, only if you want to. Was it all right? Did you find… everything you were looking for?’

‘I… it was…’

There weren’t words. Everything she’d felt and experienced was too big to speak.

‘It’s all right,’ said Ada. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

The story came out in bits and pieces over the rest of the day, and long into the evening. Not that there was all that much to tell, on the face of it. She’d left the castle, alone, for the first time since she’d been a child. She’d explored the world - or at least a small corner of it - with nobody to think of or rely on but herself. She’d visited one or two old friends. She’d spent a day with Indigo, who was staying with the Hubbles over the summer. She’d gone wherever she decided to go. And then she’d decided to come back.

She found herself telling Ada the most inconsequential things.

‘I bought an ice cream,’ she said, as they sat in bed, ‘by the canal, and I walked along the towpath while I ate it. I don’t know if I’ve ever walked along a towpath eating an ice cream before. It was… it was almost transcendent. It sounds silly, I know.’

‘It’s not silly at all,’ said Ada.

‘I’m glad to be home, though.’

Ada slipped an arm around her shoulders, and Hecate nestled closer, her head sliding into its accustomed spot in the crook of Ada’s neck.

The world seemed so much bigger now. But this little part of it still fit perfectly.


End file.
